Filling and Packing apparatuses are used for filling and packing food products, including sliced food products and formed food products into packaging. Sliced food products may be formed from a slicer such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,628,237, 5,974,925, herein incorporated by reference or commercially available as a FX180® slicer machine. The slicer may also be such as disclosed in U.S. Patent Application No. 60/999,961, herein incorporated by reference and commercially available as a PowerMax4000™ slicer available from Formax Inc. of Mokena, Ill., USA. Formed food products may be made by a patty forming machine such as disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,952,478; 4,054,967; 4,182,003; and 4,329,828, and PCT published applications WO 99/62344, and WO 2005/027667 A2, herein incorporated by reference, or those commercialized by Formax, Inc. of Mokena, Ill., including the F-26™, ULTRA26™, Maxum700®, F-19™, F-400™, or F-6™ patty forming machines.
In a typical fill and package apparatus for sliced food products, a slicer delivers groups of slices or “drafts” onto a conveyor. The drafts are conveyed spaced-apart in a stream to a staging conveyor where the stream is converted to lateral rows of drafts. Such a staging conveyor is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,149, herein incorporated by reference, and commercially available as the A*180 Autoloader from Formax, Inc. of Mokena, Ill., U.S.A. Alternatively, the drafts may be placed on the conveyor by the slicing machine in lateral rows of drafts alleviating the need of a staging conveyor. Fill and package apparatus for sliced or formed food products are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,065,936 or 7,328,542, which are herein incorporated by reference.
The rows of drafts are delivered to a packaging machine where the rows are deposited sequentially into pockets formed in a lower web of film. The rows are deposited while the film is in a dwell position. At the dwell position, the packaging machine stops the motion of the lower web.
In a typical fill and package apparatus for formed food products the patty forming machine delivers a formed food product or a stack of food products onto an output conveyor. When formed food products are provided as a stack of food products, a food product forming machine may eject a number of food products on top of one another before the food products are advanced by the output conveyor. Also, a paper interleaving device such as disclosed in U.S. Patent Application No. 60/730,304, which is incorporated by reference, and commercially available from Formax Inc., may be placed at the output of the food product forming machine to interleave paper between each food product in a food product stack. Whether the food products lay individually or in stacks on the output conveyor, the food products may be arranged in transverse rows. As with sliced food products, food products may be packed in packaging formed from a moving lower web of film.
The present inventor recognizes that it is desirable for a fill and package apparatus to efficiently and economically fills and packs food products into packaging, including both sliced and formed food products.